Zankou wrote:Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus anymore...the gift part is what it is all about.

Besides, many Atheists celebrate Christmas with their Christian families...the season's message itself is a good one.

I celebrate Christmas as an atheist among agnostic Unitarian Universalists (being my parents).

[...] the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory.-Darwin

Wowser - The mom was highly pissed off. She sure embodied the tenents of the Christian faith, didn't she? Talk about approaching it all wrong. And the dad, I think, was busying himself with his beer, which could indicate that he's a closet Pastafarian. Probably, he was wishing his wife was a stripper.

There's no dealing with people who are religiously intolerant. Better to keep this kind of thing to oneself to keep family peace, unless your asked outright.

I agree with KC. I had a "talk" with my mother about religious beliefs (Roman Catholic, FSM save me T__T) where she thought that I was atheist (which I am) and that we were both condemned to Hell because (a)I didn't believe in "God" and (b)she couldn't teach me well enough to believe in "Him". I told her that I was just agnostic, though, so she felt happier after that (thinking that I was just unsure about whether or not God actually exists or not rather than not believing in God at all). So I'm sort of keeping this whole Pastafanarianism to myself. My sister think I'm crazy for liking this at all, but, hey, what can I say? My family's crazy like that.

So, yes, I do believe it is best (for a while at least) to keep it to yourself, until you feel that you are comfortable or safe enough to tell your parents. *shrugs* Best of luck, dude.May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage.

"If you were gay,That'd be okay,I mean 'cause, hey,I'd like you anyway,Because you see,If it were me,I would feel freeTo say that I was gay(But I'm not Gay)!!"-Avenue Q

Yeah.. I keep telling everyone to get me pirate clothes or the GotFSM for Holiday, and I got 'the talk'. My parents aren't terribly religious, but they were concerned that I really might believe in the joke I don't think they get the point at all.. It's a community of like-minded people, similar to an online UU church. In the slim chance that there is another pastafarian somewhere in Utah, I'd like them to be able to recognize me by my pirate regalia.

If I have learnt anything, it is that life forms no logical patterns. It is haphazard and full of beauties which I try to catch as they fly by, for who knows whether any of them will ever return?Margot Fonteyn

I used fridge magnets spelling out "There is no god" on the fridge to tell my parents. Dad was a little angry and said that it wasn't nice. When I asked him why, he just replied that it just wasn't nice. Nice circular reasoning Dad. I told him that from then on i'd continue to lie on the fridge (the usual insults passed between me and my brother lol) instead of telling the truth. It was a funny moment. I had a one-time "You never used to be like this" from mum, but that was pretty much it. The conversation just doesn't come up any more. I can't imagine how hard it must be for somebody from a very strictly religious family.

I have a fairly good dialogue going with my moody, angst-ridden teenage son using magnetic fridge poetry. He will put things on the fridge he couldn't say out loud. I have to say I heartily approve of the medium.